July 20, 2004
Written
by Bob Meyer, Editor of BarterNews
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“The
barter industry received tremendous attention when IRTA conducted
the last research project in November of 2001, and we continue to
receive media inquiries on the barter industry from around the globe.
It’s a big job, but we knew it had to get done. Thankfully
the IRTA board saw fit to spend the time and money to further the
industry in this way.”
—Krista
Vardabash, IRTA Executive Director
The bi-annual
statistics gathering effort of the International Reciprocal Trade
Association (IRTA) will soon be conducted to determine valid and
reliable barter industry statistics.
To be a part
of this study you are not required to be an IRTA member, nor are
you required to join IRTA in order to participate.
IRTA has contracted
with Lewis and Clark Research to collect the responses, analyze
the data and produce a report of findings, so information about
your specific company will be kept confidential.
Further information
on the research effort will be available through the Tuesday
Report in the coming weeks.
Trade
Exchange Owners...
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Active
International Forges Historic Private
Trade Agreement With The Dominican Republic
Active International,
the world’s largest corporate trading firm, has announced
a new trade program that will enable the Instituto Agrario Dominicano
(IAD), the Dominican Republic’s national agrarian organization,
to trade commodities and finished products in exchange for vital
equipment and services.
The IAD is an
autonomous government agency formed by the Dominican Republic to
improve the economic and social conditions of Dominican farmers
and sustain the national agricultural economy. This is the first
agreement of its kind forged between government and private enterprise
in the Dominican Republic.
Under the agreement,
the IAD will be able to leverage commodity and finished products
such as tobacco, sugar, and cocoa to acquire equipment and services,
including irrigation equipment, tractors, trucks, and energy generators,
which will help to further enhance the economic base of the country.
Members of the IAD will utilize their products as a currency to
purchase critical infrastructure, equipment and services through
Active, drastically reducing their cash expenditure.
“By working
with Active, the Dominican Republic will be able to maximize the
full value of our country’s rich agricultural commodities,
while giving participating businesses a financial tool to acquire
equipment and services critical to the growth of our country,”
said Secretary of State and Director General of the IAD, Tomas Hernandez
Alberto. “The Economic Development Program provides us with
a unique opportunity to take advantage of the multiple benefits
of international corporate trade.”
Active and the
IAD will work together to determine the value of the products, which
will be used as a form of payment in lieu of currency. In turn,
Active will establish a trade bank which will be utilized to purchase
infrastructure, equipment and/or services based on predefined requirements.
By working with
Active, the IAD has access to new sales distribution channels for
products that might otherwise go unsold, distribution of goods to
a global marketplace, and the use of products to purchase desired
business-related products, creating additional liquidity for the
business community.
For more information,
please visit www.activeinternational.com.
Every
barter company in the world is listed on our web site,
click through to our Global List of
Barter Companies.
Get
New Money-Making Ideas And Valuable Contacts!
You can obtain
useful, informative ideas and contacts in every available back-issue
of BarterNews.
Article
In Costco’s Magazine Lauds Barter
A two-page article
titled “Let’s Trade!” was published in the recent
July issue of The Costco Connection. Interestingly, it
was written by a member of a trade exchange in San Francisco. Steven
Van Yoder began the article by sharing his positive personal experiences
with the trade exchange, and referring to the book he published,
Get Slightly Famous: Become a Celebrity in Your Field and Attract
More Business with Less Effort (Bay Tree, 2003). He indicated
he bartered more than half of the required costs to publish the
book as well as establishing his web site.
Did
you know that your classified ad gets one full year exposure in
the
Tuesday Report archives?!
For
information on The Barter Marketplace click
here.
The
Barter Marketplace archives click
here.
Immigrants
Keep U.S. Competitive In Science & Technology
A new study
by Stuart Anderson of the National Foundation for American Policy,
discloses that the contributions of skilled foreign-born professionals
and their offspring are very important to the United States. Without
them the country would be hard pressed to maintain its worldwide
advantage in such fields as math and science.
Highlights of
the study show:
• More
than half of the engineers with a Ph.D. working in the U.S., and
45% of the nation’s computer science doctorates, are foreign-born.
• Children
of immigrants comprise 65% of the 2004 U.S. Math Olympiad’s
top scorers (13 of 20) and 46% of the U.S. Physics Team (11 of 24).
• At this
year’s Intel Science Talent Search, which recognizes the nation’s
top math and science students, 60% of the finalists and seven of
the top 10 award winners were immigrants or their children. Last
year, three of the top four awardees were foreign-born.
Anderson concluded,
“If we had listened to the anti-immigration crowd over the
past 20 years, we could have wiped out two-thirds of the top future
scientists and mathematicians in the United States because we would
have barred their parents from ever entering America.”
The study, titled
The Multiplier Effect, is available at www.nfap.net.
BarterNews
issue #62 is now available...Get
yourself a copy now! Orders are shipped within two business days.
(Click on Order Form.)
Corporate
Scandals’ Legacy Especially Tough
On Small Business
The recent corporate
scandals by Enron, MCI, and others have not only destroyed the life
savings of thousands of employees and undermined the public’s
faith in the integrity of corporate America, they have also created
a situation that may have the most far-reaching aspect—making
it tougher for smaller corporations in this country to grow and
prosper.
That’s
because the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley law—passed as a reaction to
the corporate scandals—has had the effect of discouraging
the creation of publicly traded companies. Many promising firms
are now without access to what historically has been among the most
efficient ways to raise capital and expand.
Complying with
Sarbanes-Oxley means spending more on audits, lawyers and other
functions. Plus premiums for insurance policies that indemnify company
directors and offices are rising 100% to 300% annually. On average,
the cost of being a public company has climbed from $1.3 million
a year to $2.5 million, according to a study by Chicago law firm
Foley & Lardner.
Max Donner of
California.com, a San Diego research firm, figures that largely
because of Sarbanes-Oxley about 1,000 public companies will eventually
cease trading on public exchanges and transition to private ownership.
Bottomline:
Although from the short term point of view this looks ominous, we
must wait and see what the effects of Sarbanes-Oxley will be in
the long run.
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Here
& There...
- Deadline
is August 1 for advertising in the up-coming issue #63 of BarterNews,
which will be out prior to the NATE and IRTA conventions. For
complete rates click on “Advertising” (above navigational
bar) or contact Bob Meyer...e-mail: bmeyer@barternews.com.
- International
Monetary Systems (OTCBB:INLM) enrolled 211 new clients in the
second quarter of 2004. It was the second highest reported quarterly
total sign-ups in the company’s history, and represented
an 83% increase over the second quarter figure of 2003.
“Once again,
this demonstrates our (Continental Trade Exchange’s) ability
to grow internally, and not just through acquisitions,”
CEO Don Mardak declared. “As we continue to add new outside
salespeople, we should be able to maintain this recent trend
of increased client enrollments.”
-
Don Miller,
a long time trader and BXI Area Director in Denver, Colorado,
is retiring after 32 years in the business. Congratulations
on all of your successes and achievements Don, and best wishes
as you move forward in other directions in your life.
-
Barter (syndication)
is a “win-win model” for the smaller players among
China’s 1,150 state-owned TV broadcasters. Lacking the
ratings to raise their ad rates, they find that marketers and
media-buying companies with shows containing product placement
or ads is the way to go. The broadcasters take the product in
exchange for a block of program time and the ad space around
it. As more cable and digital TV channels are launched, demand
for programming is expected to grow dramatically.
-
Have
you signed up to receive a summary via e-mail of the
Tuesday Report every week? If not, go to the top of
this issue (right hand corner) and sign up!
-
Four Seasons
Hotels & Resorts is about to build the M/S Four Seasons,
a super luxury liner that will rival the first such floating
condominium, The World of ResidenSea, which was launched
in 2002. The Four Seasons ship will have 100 private apartments,
expected to sell for $4 million and up.
-
Alex McDowell,
a Hollywood production designer who built an airline terminal
for movie director Steven Spielberg’s movie The Terminal,
studied airport terminals in Japan, Europe and the USA. He came
away convinced that European airports do a better job than U.S.
counterparts in making a comfortable environment for travelers,
such as better seating, more entertainment...anything to help
pass the waiting hours.
-
Membership
in the National Association of Realtors, which represents most
of the nation’s more-active agents, has soared to more
than one million. That’s up 39% from five years ago when
the current real estate boom started.
The dawn
of the last real estate downturn saw a similar growth in the
number of people moving into sales—hoping to cash in on
the surge in house prices before the actual downturn took place.
-
Mexico,
a nation with 110 million people, has only 28 million checking
and savings accounts at commercial banks. A true indication
of the distrust and unwillingness to pay high fees by its citizenry.
Banco de Mexico, the country’s central bank, estimates
that bank lending to businesses and individuals accounts for
less than 9% of gross domestic product...one-sixth of the U.S.
level (52%).
Fees at
Mexican banks account for an average of 31% of income...higher
than any other Latin American country. For example, a bounced
check runs about $75, compared with about $22 for a U.S. bank.
-
Pimco’s
Bill Gross, the dean of American bond-fund managers, says America
is in the beginning stages of what can aptly be called hegemonic
decay. In short, Gross says the country is overextended...we’re
trying to do too much, borrow too much, and we spend too much.
-
The Federal
Reserve’s latest study says that U.S. house prices are
likely to grow at the slowest pace in more than three decades,
as interest rates climb and land prices take a tumble over the
next three years. Of primary concern is whether the recent run-up
in aggregate home prices will be somewhat reversed, much like
the 1985-1990 and the 1990-1995 experience.
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